The exemplary embodiment relates to the development of knowledge bases and finds particular application in connection with a system and method for facilitating updating of a knowledge base.
Knowledge bases are widely used to search for answers for a specific problem, such as in call centers, where they are used to find answers to a customer's issues. Often, knowledge bases associate solutions with predefined problems and are often difficult to build, update and curate, because of their size and complexity. At the time of creation, a team of engineers, or other experts familiar with the topic, is engaged in writing problem descriptions and related solutions to solve the problem. Thereafter, further work as the content evolves over time is very complex.
For example, when a company introduces a new product, it may be similar, in some respects to an existing product, but different in others. To leverage the knowledge base content for the existing product, the team is tasked with identifying how similar the new product is to already existing products and to create a new knowledge base (KB) by collecting, from the knowledge bases for the existing products, the parts (problem—solution pairs) that are expected to relate to the new product and importing them into a new KB. The experts may work on specific parts of the new product to estimate what could be the future problems and to write appropriate solutions to be recorded into the new knowledge base. However, it is likely that all potential problems and their solutions are not envisaged at the time the knowledge base is created. Once the product has been put on the market, new problems are identified by the call center staff or technicians in the field. There is then further work involved in importing them into the KB, together with their solutions.
The updating raises problems, such as recognizing that a new problem has been identified, and identifying whether its solution has been already identified as a solution to an existing problem in the KB. In the case of a new solution, problems include recognizing that this is an alternative solution for an existing problem, and determining how to capture new solutions and deciding if and how to record these new solutions inside the KB.
Currently, call center agents may be expected to write a short report (especially when they have tried a solution for a new problem), detailing what they have proposed to the customer. These reports may then be reviewed by the KB expert to decide whether to update the KB. This can be a time consuming process as the problem or solution may already exist in the KB, but this can be difficult to determine.
There remains a need for an automated method for identifying candidate updates for a knowledge base from such descriptions.